by David Weber
"Thank you." Anisimovna smiled a bit more warmly than she normally smiled at servants, then nodded to Taliadoros and the two of them stepped through the open door.
"Excuse me a moment, Ma'am," a broad shouldered young man said as they entered the anteroom of the luxurious office suite.
"Yes?" Anisimovna gave him a rather cool glance, and he smiled with just a touch of apology.
"I'm afraid some of your bodyguard's implants have flashed several alarms on our security scans. I'm sorry, but security regulations prohibit allowing someone with unidentified implanted hardware into the President's presence."
"I see." Anisimovna considered him for a moment, then turned to Taliadoros.
"I'm afraid you're going to have to wait here for me, Kyrillos," she said.
"Ma'am, under the regulations, I'm not supposed—" he began, exactly as if they hadn't already rehearsed this moment.
"I realize it's against the rules," her own tone mingled patience with just a touch of brusqueness, "but at the moment, we're guests on someone else's planet. It's only polite of us to abide by their rules and customs."
"I know that, Ma'am, but—"
"This discussion is finished, Kyrillos," she said firmly, then smiled. "I'll take full responsibility, but this time good manners trump the regulations. Anyway, I'm sure the President's security team is up to the task of protecting me, right along with him, if it comes to that. And I really don't expect anyone to try to assassinate me in the middle of a meeting with him, anyway."
"Yes, Ma'am," Taliadoros said with manifest unwillingness, and Anisimovna turned back to the broad-shouldered young man.
"I believe that's settled," she said crisply.
"Yes, Ma'am. Thank you for being so understanding. If you'll follow me, please?"
Anisimovna followed him across the anteroom. She wasn't certain that little bit of theater had been necessary, but it wouldn't hurt to make her hosts aware of her own importance, especially since she was officially here as a private person. Of course, most private persons didn't travel in their personal hyper-capable yachts or come equipped with personal enhanced bodyguards. And Taliadoros' reference to "the regulations" should also neatly suggest that whether she was supposed to be a private person or not, she actually wasn't.
Which is fair enough, since I'm not, even if everyone is about to spend the next few hours pretending I am.
She stepped through yet another door into an absolutely magnificent office overlooking downtown Siena, the capital of the planet of New Tuscany. Several people were waiting for her.
President Alain Boutin, the official head of state of the New Tuscany System, stood in courteous greeting behind his shuttle-sized desk as she entered. System Prime Minister Maxime Vézien, the real head of government, turned from the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the capital city of Livorno with a smile of welcome of his own, and Alesta Cardot, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Nicholas Pélisard, the Minister of War, turned from their quiet side conversation with Honorine Huppé, the Minister of Trade. Damien Dusserre, the New Tuscan Minister of Security, stood by himself by the bookcases lining one wall of the office, and his smile was much cooler—and less professional—than Vézien's.
I wish there'd been time for a little more research, Anisimovna thought as she crossed the large room to the desk. There'd barely been time on the voyage here for her to fully absorb the in-depth briefing on New Tuscany's current state of affairs; there certainly hadn't been enough time for any sort of detailed historical study, and she had absolutely no idea, for example, why a planet named for a region of Old Terra's Italy should be inhabited by people with almost uniformly French names.
"Ms. Anisimovna!" Boutin offered his hand across the desk. When she took it, he raised her hand to his lips and brushed a kiss across its back, and she smiled at him.
"It was most gracious of you to agree to see me, Mr. President. And especially on such short notice."
"Mr. Metcalf made it clear your business was urgent," Boutin replied. "And, to be frank, that you . . . unofficially represent, shall we say, import interests on Mesa."
"Yes, I suppose I do," she said with a whimsical smile. She rather wished that Valery Ottweiler, the Mesan attaché who had been her official aide in Meyers when the Monica operation was first mounted, had been available here, as well. She'd found his competence both impressive and comforting. But he was still back in Meyers, where he had his own part to play, and Jansen Metcalf, the Mesan trade attaché who had been upgraded into a full ambassador when New Tuscany withdrew from the Spindle Constitutional Convention, was supposed to be a competent type, as well. He wouldn't be present today, however, of course. The fact that Mesa's official representative was absent—and that he had emphasized her own "unofficial" status ahead of time—were two more of the little clues that, in fact, she not only did speak for the true rulers of Mesa but that what she had to say was very important indeed.
"Please, allow me to introduce my colleagues," Boutin said, and Anisimovna nodded pleasantly to each of the others in turn as the President murmured their names. Not that anyone in that room at that moment actually needed to be introduced to anyone else, she was quite certain.
Introductions completed, she settled into a comfortable chair, crossed her long legs, and leaned back. During her first visit to Roberto Tyler, Anisimovna had deliberately chosen a gown which emphasized the rich perfection of her own figure. Boutin and—even more importantly—Vézien were far less likely to be swayed by any physical charms, however provocatively displayed, and so she had chosen a severely tailored outfit in midnight blue. And, while she had no qualms about using whatever tactics—or attributes—would get the job done, she had to admit that she much preferred not feeling like a gussied up pleasure slave.
"And now, Ms. Anisimovna, may we know what it is that brings you to New Tuscany?"
"To be totally frank, Mr. President, I'm here in no small part because of the rather disastrous occurrences in Monica," she said, and hid a smile at the shock in the New Tuscans' faces.
Didn't expect me to own right up to the fact that we were involved in that little catastrophe, did you? she thought sardonically. Well, I've got a few more surprises in store for you, as well.
"I'm sure you're all well aware of what happened to the Union of Monica," she continued calmly. "That regrettable state of affairs was the result of a combination of coincidences no one could have predicted, coupled with a certain degree of botched execution on the Monicans' part."
"We have had reports on those . . . events," Boutin said slowly, his eyes flickering sideways to Dusserre. "May I ask exactly what about them has brought you to speak to us?"
"Frankly, Mr. President, we have no interest in seeing the Manties expanding their control and influence into this region of space," she replied with an air of total candor. "I'm sure all of you are very well aware of the long-standing hostility between the business community of Mesa and the Star Kingdom of Manticore. And as Manticore has demonstrated quite often in the past—and very recently, in Monica—the 'Star Kingdom' has never been shy about resorting to the use of naked force in the pursuit of its policy objectives. It seems very evident to us in the Mesa System that the establishment of a Manticoran bridgehead here in Talbott will almost inevitably lead to further harassment of Mesa and, quite possibly, to actual Manticoran military operations against Mesa in the not-too-distant future. That, to be completely honest, was the reason for our initial contacts with President Tyler.
"Unfortunately, as all of you are also aware, the Constitutional Convention in Spindle has ratified this new constitution, turning virtually the entire Cluster into another lobe of the Star Kingdom. Which means, of course, that what we hoped to prevent as a measure of self-defense by means of our support for President Tyler has become an established fact."
Several faces had tightened at her mention of the Constitutional Convention, and she concealed a mental smile of catlike satisfaction as she saw them. Frankly, she'd
been flabbergasted—initially, at least—to learn that New Tuscany had, in fact, declined to ratify the new constitution. In their place, she would have been falling all over herself to get under the Manticoran security umbrella and share in the flood tide of commerce and investment which was likely to be coming the Cluster's way. Except, of course, for that other little problem they had. She'd already concluded, just in the short trip from the spaceport to this meeting, that Bardasano's analysis of the New Tuscan oligarchs and their motivations had been right on the money. In fact, the lid was screwed down even more tightly here on New Tuscany than she'd expected from Bardasano's briefings. Uniformed security forces had been a high-visibility part of the ground car drive from the shuttle pad, and she'd noticed an extraordinarily high number of extraordinarily obvious (for a planet with New Tuscany's tech base) security cameras on light standards and at intersections. No doubt there were other, far less obtrusive measures in place to monitor the situation without giving away their presence, but clearly the New Tuscan security forces wanted to do more than simply keep a close eye on things. They also wanted to make any potential troublemakers abundantly aware of the point that they were keeping that eye on things.
Between the devil and the deep blue sea, weren't you, Mr. President? Her mental tone was mocking, although she supposed it wasn't very funny from the New Tuscans' perspective. If you didn't ratify the constitution, you got left out in the cold where all that lovely investment and capital flow were involved. But if you did ratify it, you'd've had the Manties swarming all over New Tuscany, and they wouldn't have approved of your 'security measures' at all, would they?
Looked at from that perspective, she supposed the New Tuscan decision to opt out of the constitutional process when Manticore and their fellow Talbott delegates declined to give them the domestic security carte blanche they'd insisted upon actually made a degree of sense. The last thing any properly exploitative oligarchs could afford was for their social inferiors to get uppity notions, after all. Unfortunately for New Tuscany, the mere example of what was about to happen in the rest of the Cluster was virtually certain to contaminate their star system with those very notions. Their only real hope had been to siphon off enough of the increasing commerce and Manticoran investment to provide an at least modest but real improvement in the general New Tuscan standard of living. Frankly, the chance of their ever having been able to control the situation through any combination of carrot and stick had never been realistic, in Anisimovna's opinion, but it appeared to be the only one they'd been able to come up with.
Not surprisingly, since the only other approach would have been to recognize when they were beaten and try to make the best terms they could with the people they've been systematically pissing on—and pissing off—for the last two or three generations, she thought. Somehow, I don't think they would have enjoyed the only terms they could get.
"As you say, it would appear the organization of this 'Talbott Quadrant' is an accomplished fact, Ms. Anisimovna," Prime Minister Vézien said. His tone was sour, but she noticed he was regarding her shrewdly. "Yet somehow I can't avoid the suspicion that you wouldn't have come to call on us—or been so . . . forthcoming, shall we say?—about your involvement with Monica unless you thought that state of affairs could somehow still be . . . rectified."
"I see you're as perceptive as my briefings suggested you were, Mr. Prime Minister. Yes, we do believe the situation can be rectified, which I'm sure you here in New Tuscany would find almost as welcome as we would in Mesa. And, to anticipate your next question, yes, again. I have come here to discuss ways in which the two of us could assist one another in bringing that rectification about."
"Forgive me for pointing this out, Ms. Anisimovna," Alesta Cardot said, "but the last star system you recruited for this no doubt laudable objective doesn't seem to have fared very well."
"And there's also the little matter of certain collateral damage inflicted by your previous efforts, if you'll pardon me for saying so," Dusserre added. The Security Minister met Anisimovna's eyes very levelly, and she nodded slightly in acknowledgment of his point.
"Madam Minister," she said to Cardot, "you're absolutely correct about what happened to Monica. As I've already said, however, that was due to a completely unpredictable coincidence of circumstances—circumstances which are unlikely, at the very least, to ever repeat themselves. Moreover, even if they—or something like them—did repeat, they would have no significant impact on the strategy we have in mind this time. And, Mr. Dusserre," she said, turning to face the Security Minister squarely, "I'm afraid we must plead guilty to supplying Agnes Nordbrandt and her fellow lunatics with the wherewithal for their campaign against the Kornatian authorities. I'm sure that's made subsequent difficulties for you here on New Tuscany, and my own reading of events suggests that it helped Alquezar and his allies force through the constitutional provisions they favored all along. I regret that, but, in fairness, I ought to point out that at the time we decided to supply Nordbrandt, our objectives revolved around Monica, not anyone here in the Cluster itself. The consequences here on New Tuscany are unfortunate, but to be brutally honest, at that time New Tuscany was completely secondary to our calculations and concerns."
"Well, that's certainly frank enough, Ms. Anisimovna," Cardot said dryly.
"In this case, Madam Secretary," Anisimovna replied, "candor is clearly the best policy. And since that's the case, there's very little point in pretending that what I'm here to discuss is anything except a marriage of pragmatic self-interest. I'd be the first to admit you have a lovely planet here. Indeed, I quite enjoyed observing it from orbit and on the flight down, and the scenery around the spaceport is breathtaking. Nonetheless, it would be dishonest of me to pretend that Mesa has any intrinsic interest whatsoever in New Tuscany . . . aside from the fashion in which the two of us can assist one another in bringing about a state of affairs we both desire."
"I see." President Boutin folded his hands in front of him on his desk blotter and cocked his head to one side. "I think you're probably correct that there's no need for New Tuscany and Mesa to pretend they're bosom friends. At the same time, however, Alesta's point about what happened to Monica is entirely valid. I'm sure I speak for the rest of my colleagues when I say we have absolutely no interest in experiencing the same unfortunate consequences. And, to return candor for candor, Mesa's sheer distance from the Cluster, and your planet's habit of . . . acting from behind the scenes, shall we say, offers you quite a bit of protection which would not be available to us if we should arouse the Manties' ire. As you've already said, they have a pattern of using military force to achieve their policy ends, and please don't be offended, but I'd really prefer not to have the Royal Manticoran Navy do to us what it did to Monica."
"Mr. President, frankness is unlikely ever to offend me. And I entirely understand your feelings. However, I believe I can explain why what happened to Monica most definitely will not be happening to New Tuscany."
"Speaking for myself, as Minister of War, and, I'm sure, for all of us, I would be fascinated to hear that explanation," Nicholas Pélisard said, and his tone was even drier than Cardot's had been.
"The most important single difference between what we're envisioning this time around and the Monican operation is that we've decided our biggest mistake in Monica was attempting to maintain too great a degree of deniability. We stayed too far out of the loop—and relied too heavily on Monica to 'front' for us—when we arranged to supply President Tyler with the battlecruisers he required for his part of the operation."
"Which was?" Dusserre inquired mildly, and she looked at him. "We've heard several possible explanations. I was simply wondering which one—if any of them—was accurate?" the security minister added mildly, and he smiled.
It was cynical, that smile, but behind it she saw something else. Something not even his years of calculation and power could hide. Dusserre was a player, someone who gravitated as naturally to power—and to his own position as Ne
w Tuscany's chief policeman—as a moth gravitated towards an open flame, yet she wondered if he was truly aware of the fear she saw behind that smile. The sense that the entire power structure of his homeworld was sliding inexorably towards collapse . . .
Albrecht and Isabel were right, Anisimovna thought. These people are desperate enough to save their little house of cards to be nicely receptive. What was it that Old Earth king said? Something about 'After me, the flood'? Well, these people already feel the water lapping around their ankles, don't they? That's good.
"The objective," she said aloud, looking him straight in the eye, "was for Tyler to secure control of the Lynx Terminus of the Manticoran Wormhole Junction. Commissioner Verrochio, of the Office of Frontier Security, was prepared to support his actions—completely impartially, of course—while the League arranged for a new plebiscite, under OFS supervision, to determine the validity of the original plebiscite returns in favor of seeking annexation by Manticore. I'm afraid the commissioner anticipated discovering widespread fraud in the Manticoran plebiscite." She shook her head sadly. "If that had turned out to be the case, then obviously Frontier Security would have had no choice but to set those flawed results aside in favor of the results of its own plebiscite. Which would undoubtedly have led to the endorsement of a Cluster-wide government under the leadership and protection of the Monican Navy and recognized by the Solarian League as the legitimate government of the Cluster."
She had the satisfaction of seeing even Dusserre's eyes widen slightly as she admitted the breadth and scope of the original plan. She'd thought it was an audacious but workable plan herself, when she sold it to Roberto Tyler in the first place. Of course, she hadn't realized then what the Alignment's real objective was. And she had absolutely no intention of explaining that real objective to these people, either.